Freedom of Expression

Sunday, November 6. 2016

Exchange with President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

From: Lovász László
Subject: Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 3:38:45 AM GMT-4

Dear Colleagues:

I address this letter to Honorary and External members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Several of you have resigned from ourAcademy, protesting the policies of the Hungarian government and assuming that the Academy did not work to mitigate these. This is a very serious loss for us. I understand their concerns, and respect their decision, but I would like to make some comments about the Academy's position.

Democracy in Hungarian society is still evolving and sadly it has been and still is deeply divided between - roughly speaking - a liberal and conservative side. Throughout society, including intellectuals, this leads to opposing camps, and the tribal mentality often dampens the critical balanced approach that could be expected from such people.

The Academy is one of the very few places where such divisions nevertheless enable creative activities, and where people voting for either side are willing and able to cooperate for the benefit of science and education. I was nominated and elected by all members on both sides of the line, and I promised to maintain this fruitful cooperation. From this it follows that I should not make any political statements in the name of the Academy, since I was not elected on any political platform. Any political statement would be opposed by a considerable fraction of the members.

Of course, it is not always easy to draw the line between political and moral concerns. On issues when politicians from both sides advocate one-bit answers, we try to express a scientifically supported, balanced opinion. This requires rigorous work and advice from experts. For example, our Academy did carry out a thorough and (I hope) unbiased study of the composition of migrants, and with some recommendations, released it to the government; this is now publicly available. On the also hotly debated issue of public education, we did not take sides on whether it should be run by the national or local governments, but started more than a dozen research groups to design education methodology based on real experiments performed in real schools. An extensive volume about the status of the Hungarian legal system has just been published by our research institute (this is also freely available from our web site). We publish well-researched (and often critical) studies about many other legal, sociological, educational, economic issues of our society.

We must cooperate with the government (which was reelected with more than 50% of the votes cast) on a number of issues like research funding (we maintain a research network of institutes employing about 3000 researchers), education, water management and other problems raised by climate change, just to mention a few.

I regret the resignation of several of our external and honorary members. I hope very much that those who have resigned will maintain their close relation with the Academy, their collaboration with Hungarian scientists. I also hope that your expert and wise advice will help the Academy to work for progress and ensure that decisions are made on scientific basis. I want to thank those external and honorary members who expressed their support for a policy as outlined above.

I am at your disposal should you have any questions, and so are your collaborators in research, as well as the leaders of the section of your research area.

Laszlo Lovasz
President, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

From: Stevan Harnad
Subject: Reply to Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 9:05:09 AM GMT-4
To: Lovász László

Dear Professor Lovasz,

Thank you for your message to External and Honorary Members.

I regret that I cannot agree that the underlying issues are merely a matter of political differences of opinion between between liberals and conservatives in an evolving democracy.

Nor can I agree that — in the name of keeping science separate from politics — there is nothing more the Academy can do. I think the Open Letter of the Internal Members and Doctors indicates what the Academy can do.

But I fully understand the difficult position you are in, in view of the fact that the Internal Members’ salaries and pensions as well as their research grants are under the control of the Orban regime.

Please believe that our resignations and critique are not intended to harm the Academy but to help it.

This is a reflection of my view only. I do not speak for the other resignees.

Yours sincerely,
Stevan Harnad

From: Stevan Harnad
Subject: Fwd: Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 8:34:23 AM GMT-4
To: Thomas Jovin, Israel Pecht, Torsten Wiesel, Daniel C.Dennett

Dear colleagues,

The... letter, sent today by the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to all the External and Honorary Members, is unfortunately a confirmation of the degree to which the Academy is now under the thumb of the Orban regime. It recites the all-too-familiar — and highly misleading — talking points of the Orban regime, marshalled for every occasion:

(1) Hungary and the Academy have democracy and pluralism

(2) the issues cited by the resignees are merely political differences between liberals and conservatives

(3) the current government is a reflection of the free will of the majority of the populace

(4) an Academy of Science must be independent of politics

(There is also some muted indication that the President’s and the Academy’s hands are tied because they are dependent on the government for support and subsidies. This is certainly true. But the rest is quite the opposite of the truth.)

1. Democracy in Hungary is not evolving, it is devolving, being systematically dismantled by the Orban regime.

2. The differences among the members of the Academy, and in the general population, are not differences between liberals and conservatives, but between proponents of democracy and proponents (or fellow-travellers) of autocracy.

Opposing the Orban regime are not just liberals but centrists and conservatives, although they are all collectively labelled as liberals (and communists and traitors) by the Orban regime. Even the neo-nazi Jobbik party, which is as far right as one can be, is opposed to Orban’s kleptocracy.

3. The current government is not a reflection of the free will of the populace: It is the reflection of a population under duress from an ever more autocratic and corrupt machine that is controlling their media, their education, their livelihoods, their health, their laws, their tax money and their elections. None of this is a liberal/conservative matter.

4. In a democracy, an Academy of Sciences should be independent from politics. In an increasingly flagrant autocracy, an Academy of Sciences, like every individual and institution, should be opposing the autocracy in any way it can.

The many international, nonpartisan reports in the database linked to our call for resignations contain some of the abundant and definitive evidence of the ever-growing anti-demcratic actions of the Orban regime.

The signatories of the Internal Members' and Doctors’ call for the Academy to investigate and openly debate these actions. This is the way the Academy can do its part in trying to restore freedom and democracy in Hungary. Not in trying to reassure External Members that these are all just partisan political differences on which science is best served by remaining mute.

I close with an illustration of how the familiar tactics of the Orban regime are again palpable in Professor Lovasz’s letter (without a doubt vetted and partly also redacted, by the Orban regime’s minders):

One of the signatories of the 2011 Open Letter about the "philosopher affair” (which had been a microcosm and harbinger of what was to ensue in the country as a whole in the next 5 years) had been successfully persuaded to withdraw his signature — by receiving a barrage of the apparently polarized views on the issue (government press and police harassment campaigns against Academy members critical of the Orban regime)— that this was just a partisan political matter on which he could not make a judgment one way or the other. The ensuing five years have since demonstrated to the world that the polarization is not between liberals and conservatives in a democracy, but between opponents and collaborators of a malign and sinking autocracy. This time this prominent academician resigned. I doubt that Professor Lovasz’s letter will persuade him to withdraw his resignation, or to rue it.

Yours sincerely,
Stevan Harnad

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 00:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Exchange with President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 00:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Monday, October 17. 2016

Call for Government Protest Resignations from Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Call for External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
To Resign in Protest Against Assaults on Democracy by the Hungarian Government
In Hungary today democracy is under a dark cloud that is seriously threatening freedom of expression, human rights and even the rule of law. As External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), we are witnessing with alarm and dismay the relentless and unchecked deterioration of social freedom and justice under Hungary’s current government. We feel that the Academy has the responsibility and the historical duty to raise its voice in defense of freedom and justice in Hungary. Failure to do so would be to miss its higher calling.

The undersigned External Members have accordingly chosen to resign from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to protest the Hungarian government’s assault on democracy but also to support and underscore the fundamental mission of the Academy and its members, as expressed unambiguously in the Open Letter from 28* Internal Members and Doctors to the President of the Academy on October 14th 2016 requesting:
[*number has since been growing.]

"that the Academy [should] initiate substantive discussion as soon as possible about the anti-democratic developments in Hungary, especially freedom of the press, and that the Academy should take part in the exploration of issues important for the whole of society”

We extend here a general call for External Members of the Academy to join us in resigning in protest against the Orban regime and its repressive policies. This call is addressed only to External Members, not to Internal Members, who might otherwise risk a fate comparable to that of the staff of Hungary’s largest independent newspaper, Népszabadság, often critical of the government, whose operation was abruptly terminated without warning or justification on October 8th 2016.

This open manifesto and all updates will appear online at the Hungarian Free Press website. External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences are invited to resign by sending an explicit letter of resignation by email to the President of the Academy:

Professor Lászlo Lovász
lovasz.laszlo@titkarsag.mta.hu
Important: So that your name can be added to the list, please also send a CC to notify that you have resigned to:

editor@hungarianfreepress.com
Once your identity and intention to resign have been confirmed, your name will be added to the list below.

(For those who would like to consult a comprehensive, detailed legal analysis of the Orban regime’s depredations from 2010 until May 2016, many expert reports are available at http://bit.ly/HungaryReports.)

External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences who have resigned to protest the Hungarian Government's Assaults on Democracy in Hungary:

Jovin, Thomas, Director Emeritus, Laboratory of Cellular Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (resigned HAS 8 October 2016)
Harnad, Stevan, Professor of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton, UK (resigned HAS 8 October 2016)
Pecht, Israel, Dr. Morton and Anne Kleiman Professor of Chemical Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science (resigned HAS 11 October 2016)
Wiesel, Torsten, Nobel Laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 1981, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University (resigned HAS, 17 October 2016)
Dennett, Daniel, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy & Co-Director Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University (resigned HAS 17 October 2016)

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 13:33 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Wednesday, February 23. 2011

Hungary's Philosophy Affair: Bringing It All Out Into The Open

Bohannon, John (2011) Hungarian Academicians Blast Government Over Inquiry Into Research Funds. ScienceInsider February 4, 2011

"An ugly political situation in Hungary has spilled over into academia, prompting an investigation of supposed financial misdeeds on one side and claims of harassment on the other. Humanities scholars are under investigation by the government for alleged misuse of research funds. But their supporters say they are the target of a government crackdown on critics..."

First, heartfelt thanks to John Bohannon at ScienceInsider for being the first English-language journalist to give these sad and worrisome developments in Hungary the international attention they so urgently needed.

Let me try to describe the situation in a nutshell in 14 points, and then encourage all viewpoints to express themselves at the ScienceInsider site, openly -- and then let the world scientific/scholarly community draw its own conclusions.

1. Hungary is a small country with a difficult historical past and a language comprehensible only to its native populace and a very few courageous foreigners.

2. In this closed system an ever-repeating cycle has evolved in which there is extreme polarization ("us vs them") and blame for most problems is laid on the "enemy," with most efforts directed toward punishing the enemy instead of solving the problem.

3. The polarization divides roughly along right-wing and "left-liberal" lines, but these are not quite the same as they are in western europe and north america -- as will become evident if this discussion manages to bring the voices -- which are currently expressing themselves only in Hungarian -- out into the open.

4. I will point out only that the current government is right-wing, and has shown some inclination lately to control the press more than any other western democracy. I will also point out that the former government was left-wing, and highly corrupt. The government before that one was likewise corrupt, and that government happened to be the very same government as the current government. And before that was the communist government, for about four decades, likewise corrupt. And before that was the wartime Fascist government, likewise corrupt…

5. So mutual accusations of corruption are completely uninformative and unhelpful.

6. The present "philosopher affair" concerns this same recurrent pattern: The Hungarian research grant system is extremely inefficient (as it is in many countries, but probably even moreso in Hungary), as well as very low on funds (as it is in many countries, but probably moreso in Hungary) because of the global financial crisis. The philosopher affair concerns alleged irregularities connected with research funding.

7. All researchers, everywhere, complain about the funding system: It is unfair. It gives too much money to unworthy projects; it is biassed; some research and researchers are favoured over others. Let's call these complaints that rival researchers (and rival research fields) make about one another all the time, everywhere, the "generic" complaints.

8. Researchers (and their institutions, and also their funders and funding systems) are also notorious for being sloppy and inefficient (they miss deadlines, they over- or under-spend budgets, they make accounting and reporting errors, etc.). This too is familiar. But researchers are also mostly honest, everywhere, and they try to remedy their sloppiness once it is pointed out -- or if the system becomes sufficiently efficient to make sure slip-ups are prevented from happening in the first place. Let's call these complaints about the implementation and efficiency of compliance with the funding system "systemic" complaints.

9. In addition, there occasionally occurs a genuine instance of major and intentional misuse of research funds on the part of researchers. If researchers do something that is against the rules of the research funding, their funds are revoked and they may have to pay a penalty. Let us call accusations of having done something like this accusations of "rule-breaking."

10. If the intentional researcher malfeasance is not only rule-breaking, but against the law, then the researchers are taken to court. But such things are very rare, and serious, so charges of having done illegal things are not made lightly. Let us call accusations of having done something like this accusations of "criminality."

11. Now it can be stated what is at issue in the philosopher affair in Hungary: A small number of philosophers has been singled out and accused of a bundle of things, but it is not in the least clear whether the things in the bundle are in the first two categories (generic and systemic complaints) or the second two categories (rule-breaking or criminal charges). The evidence has not been made known. The accusations are blurred and keep mutating. What is aired is mostly just generic and systemic complaints familiar to every funded researcher in the world -- and those do not distinguish the accused philosophers in any way from any other funded researcher anywhere on the planet -- and yet the blurred bundle keeps being treated as rule-breaking or criminal charges, and indeed police have been called in to investigate (with no result, other than researcher harassment by police investigations). They have also been looked into by a governmental research funding overseer (Gyula Budai).

12. The researchers involved are reputable researchers of long standing, some of them world famous. It is not stated why they were singled out for these accusations. The accusations and their targets are not the result of a global, systematic, random audit to detect malfeasance, within or between fields: They are simply a heterogeneous and constantly changing bundle of ad hoc accusations, levelled against these philosophers out of the blue, and then turned into a sustained press campaign of presumptive criminality and vilification by the Government-associated right wing press.

13. Since all the accused are of the "left-liberal" persuasion, and the two that are widely known internationally are also prominent critics of the current government (but also of past governments, including left-wing ones), the most likely hypothesis is that the accusations are yet again the result of Hungary's unfortunate tendency to blame problems (in this case the inefficiency of the funding system? the corruption of the prior government?) on the "enemy," and to punish the enemy for them -- instead of solving the problem (by reforming the funding system, if that is the problem).

14. All indications -- and of course this is the most worrisome aspect of it all -- are that the campaign of accusation, police-intervention, and press vilification are taking place with the encouragement and involvement of the government, bent, yet again, on punishing its predecessors, critics and other "enemies" rather than on using their turn in office to solve the ongoing problems of the country -- and on setting an example of governing uncorruptly.

Discussion -- but temperate discussion only -- is now invited at the ScienceInsider site from all sides.

In addition to the Open Letter to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from External and Honorary members calling on the Academy's President, Jozsef Palinkas, to take a stand in support of the accused philosophers and against the campaign of harassment (January 28), an Open Letter from members of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association was also sent to the Academy's President on February 2.

There is also a petition that can be signed by all supporters of the Hungarian philosophers worldwide.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 15:50 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Open Letter to President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

In addition to the Open Letter to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from External and Honorary members calling on the Academy's President, Jozsef Palinkas, to take a stand in support of the accused philosophers and against the campaign of harassment (January 28), an Open Letter from members of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association was also sent to the Academy's President on February 2.

There is also a petition that can be signed by all supporters of the Hungarian philosophers worldwide.

In addition, an article on the Hungarian Philosopher Affair appeared on February 4 in AAAS’s ScienceInsider. Worldwide commentary is also invited at the AAAS website.

28 January 2011

OPEN LETTER

To: Professor József Pálinkás, President, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
From: Undersigned External and Honorary Members, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Dear Professor Pálinkás,

It is impossible for scholars and scientists living in the rest of the world to be unaware of the very worrisome developments taking place in Hungary today. There is dismay about the curbs on press freedoms, but the latest developments have struck home in the Academy.

Every funded scholar and scientist in the world knows that research grants are provided to support the conduct of research and the communication of its results through conferences, student support and publications.

We also know that even in the wealthiest nations, research is lamentably underfunded, especially in today's difficult financial times.

We all know, too, that every funded researcher in the world is vulnerable to superficial and unsupported charges -- by laymen who do not understand or perhaps do not even believe in scholarly and scientific research -- to the effect that public money is being wasted on research that is not worth conducting and not worth disseminating.

This is why research funding is accorded on the basis of peer review, by qualified scholars and scientists, and not on the basis of opinion polls, let alone allegations by every skeptic, cynic, or worse.

Most important of all, whenever a baseless attack on publicly funded research happens to appear in the media -- assuming that the attack is not so vicious or personal as to be libelous or defamatory -- it is ignored and tolerated as one of the inevitable, if not always admirable, manifestations of freedom of the press and freedom of opinion.

In particular, the worldwide scientific and scholarly community knows well that the occasional public venting, especially in hard economic times, of an individual's animus against research spending in general, or against a particular line of research that the critic happens to dislike, is to be expected in a Gaussian distribution of opinion, freely expressible in public.

If necessary (though it is rarely necessary), supporters of research, better informed about its conduct and purpose, including the research community itself, are free to rally in the defense of research and researchers when they fall under the shadow of disinformation.

But in a nation where it is the freedom of the press and freedom of opinion that are themselves falling under a shadow, and where familiar generic criticisms, so general (and superficial, and ludicrous) that they could literally have been made about every single funded researcher on the planet today -- unmerited funding, misspent on conducting and communicating unworthy research -- are coupled with far more sinister and borderline-libelous allegations -- pocketing the research money instead of using it for its intended purpose -- the first thing the international scholarly community would expect by way of a response is a rallying of the national scholarly community in defense of the research and researchers thus attacked.

Instead, what we hear is that in Hungary legal action is being contemplated against the researchers that are under attack.

We write to ask that the Hungarian Academy of Sciences take a prompt, prominent and unequivocal public position in support of the research and researchers thus attacked, and against such empty, ad hominem attacks, to which every scholar and scientist in the world is vulnerable, if they are allowed to metastasize unchallenged.

It is noteworthy, in particular, that it is philosophical research -- mental work for which it is not laboratory results but conferences, student support and writings themselves that are the product that the research is funded to produce – that is particularly vulnerable to diffuse generic attacks on the worth of the research and the integrity of the researchers.

Hence research in Philosophy and History -- a formal division of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences -- is in especial need of the Academy's explicit support.

Nor is it irrelevant that philosophers -- like journalists -- are often thorns in the sides of governments, on account of their critical thinking -- critical thinking of which Hungary today seems to stand in greater need than ever in recent times.

A national Academy of Sciences is the first, natural defender of the exercise of critical thinking in research. As external members and honorary members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences we confidently but urgently await the prompt, prominent and unequivocal statement of the Academy's public position in support of the research and researchers in question.

It is the principle of assessment through informed peer review -- as opposed to public trial by sinister, uninformed and unsupported allegations -- that is at stake here, and the stakes are especially high for science and scholarship.

With collegial salutations,

[list of co-signatories below being updated daily]

Adhya, Sankar, NCI-NIH, HM
Alföldy, Géza, U Heidelberg, EM
Aszalos Adorján, NCI,NIH, EM
Balabán, Alexandru ,Texas A&M U, HM
Boskovits, Miklós, U Florence, EM
Bruner, Jerome, NYU, HM
Changeux, Jean-Pierre, Inst Pasteur, HM
Cocking, Edward, U Nottingham, HM
Csörgő Miklós, Carleton U, EM
Dallós, Peter, Northwestern U, HM
Déak, István, Columbia U, EM
Demchenko, A, Nat Ac Sci, Ukraine, HM
Diehl, Volker, U Cologne, HM
Dressler, Wolfgang, U Vienna, HM
Evans, Robert, University of Oxford, HM
Fellegi Iván Péter, Statistics Canada, EM
Flores, Ricardo, U Politea, Valencia, HM
Fried Johannes, Goethe I Franfurt, HM
Gelenbe, Erol, Imperial College, HM
Gertler, János, George Mason U, EM
Grafarend Erik, U Stuttgart, HM
Győrffy, Balázs, U Bristol, EM
Hartkamp, Arthur, Radboud U, HM
Hajdu, János, U Cologne, EM
Harnad, Stevan, UQàM, EM
Hofstede, Geert, U Maastricht, HM
Hopwood, David, J Innes Ctr, HM
Hortobágyi, Gabriel N., Texas U, EM
Horváth, John, U Maryland, EM
Husar, Rudolf, Washington U, EM
Jovin, Thomas, M-PI, Goettingen, HM
Kaczorek, Tadeusz, Warsaw U Tech, HM
Kahane, J-P, U Paris-Sud Orsay, HM
Kahneman, Daniel, Princeton U, HM
Karády, Victor, CEU, EM
Kazmierkowski, M, Warsaw Tech U, HM
Kende, Péter, BFTDK, EM
Lax, Peter, NYU Courant Instiute, HM
Lee, Y-T, Pres, Academia Sinica, HM
Lempert, Lászlo, Purdue U, EM
Lengyel Peter, Yale U, EM
Lichtenthaler Frieder, TU Darmstadt, HM
Maier, Giulio, Technical U Milan, HM
Mészáros, István, U Sussex, EM
Mroz, Zenon, Polish Acad of Sciences, HM
Muller, Miklos, Rockefeller U, EM
Márkus, György, U Sydney, EM
Pauncz, Ruben (Rezso), Technion, EM
Pápay, Gyula, U Rostock, EM
Pavláth, Atilla, USDA, EM
Pecht, Israel, Weizmann Institute, HM
Petsko , Gregory A., Brandeis U, HM
Polányi, John, U Toronto, HM
Polonyi, János, U Strasbourg, EM
Pretsch, Ernö, ETH Zuerich, EM
Raven, Peter, Missour Bot Garnad, HM
Thirring Walter, U Vienna, HM
Thoma, Manfred, U Hannover, HM
Thorgeirsson , Snorri S. NIH, HM
Thurau, Klaus, U Munich, HM
Tomasello, Michael, MPI Leipzig, HM
Ullmann, Ágnes, Institut Pasteur, EM
Varadhan Srinivasa, NYU Courant, HM
Vető Miklós, U Poitiers, EM
Walter-Klingenstein Grete, U Graz, HM
Wilke, F. Ludwig, Tech U Berlin, HM
Zieme, Peter, Berlin Acad of Sciences, HM
Zsidó, László, U Roma, EM

XII. Fej., 70/G. §

(1) A Magyar Köztársaság tiszteletben tartja és támogatja a tudományos és művészeti élet szabadságát, a tanszabadságot és a tanítás szabadságát.

(2) Tudományos igazságok kérdésében dönteni, kutatások tudományos értékét megállapítani kizárólag a tudomány művelői jogosultak.)

(1) The Republic of Hungary honours and supports the freedom of science/scholarship, arts, ... etc.

(2) The sole parties entitled to decide questions of scientific/scholarly validity and to evaluate scientific/scholarly research are the scientific/scholarly researchers themselves.

Links to descriptions of the ongoing events in question:

http://bit.ly/HungaryAcademy-1
http://bit.ly/HungaryAcademy-2-en-francais
http://bit.ly/HungaryAcademy-3
http://bit.ly/HungarianAcademy-4
http://bit.ly/HungaryAcademy-5-auf-deutsch
http://bit.ly/VajdaVideo-in-hungarian
http://bit.ly/HellerVideo-in-English

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 15:48 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Nyiri on Martyrdom

NYIRI (full posting):
“The basic fact here is that we do not know the facts. There is a police investigation underway which will sooner or later uncover, or not uncover, facts. Then there might be, or not be, court proceedings. Then we will know what the facts, if there are facts, amount to. We have no reason to believe that the Hungarian judicial system is basically or systematically flawed. From a distance, it appears that a group of people who are closely interconnected have some years ago received an abnormally high amount of project sums, with unconvincing research topics. That at least some of those sums were spent in irregular ways might well turn out to be the case. -- I have been the director of the Institute for Philosophical Research between 1995 and 2005. Also, I am a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. My own problem with the Heller group has nothing to do with the present allegations, which might turn out to be untrue, or even true (a nasty alternative). The controversy I for years had with them is about output in philosophy being subject to scientific criteria. They maintain it is not. I maintain it is. Obviously the answer here will affect jobs and money. This is the real issue - everything else is a smoke screen, a phoney discussion, and a martyrdom act.”

Quote/commentary on Nyri posting:

The following is posted with permission from a recent email exchange with Professor Nyiri:

NYIRI (Jan 28):
"Stevan, you are making a bad mistake. You should not protest when not knowing the facts. The facts are not at all unambiguous."
HARNAD (Feb 2):
"I am prepared to correct my mistake. Could you please write me the facts?"
NYIRI (Feb 2):
"Dear Istvan, the basic fact of course is that we do not know the facts. That is why I suggested that rush action should be halted. There is a police investigation underway which will sooner or later uncover, or not uncover, facts. Then there might be, or not be, court proceedings. Then we will know what the facts, if there are facts, amount to. We have no reason to believe that the Hungarian judicial system is basically or systematically flawed. --- On a less formal level, let me say that clearly a group of people who are closely interconnected have some years ago received an abnormally high amount of project sums, with unconvincing research topics. That at least some of those sums were spent in irregular ways seems to be clear. --- Finally, and this is something you should please not quote: Heller and company are, all contrary appearances notwithstanding, entirely continuous with Rakosi and Kadar. To this day, they are terrorizing Hungarian intellectual life. The issue is whether they will remain in a position to continue to do so. Warm regards, Kr."

NYIRI (Feb 2):
"On second thoughts, you can quote, if you want to, the Rakosi and Kadar bits."

End of email exchange.

HARNAD:
The reader may wish to compare the end of the posted version of Professor Nyiri's statement with the end of the email version, below [emphasis added]:

NYIRI POSTING (Feb 4):
"My own problem with the Heller group has nothing to do with the present allegations… The controversy I for years had with them is about output in philosophy being subject to scientific criteria. They maintain it is not. I maintain it is. Obviously the answer here will affect jobs and money. This is the real issue - everything else is a smoke screen, a phoney discussion, and a martyrdom act."

NYIRI EMAIL (Feb 2):
"Heller and company are, all contrary appearances notwithstanding, entirely continuous with Rakosi and Kadar. To this day, they are terrorizing Hungarian intellectual life. The issue is whether they will remain in a position to continue to do so."

HARNAD:
I leave it to the reader to judge the degree to which this sort of thinking is illustrative of the very sad and worrisome "us vs. them" score-settling tendency (stretching back 97 years or beyond, in the view of Professor Hornok) that I described in my opening posting "Bringing It All Out Into the Open."

(I will add only that it is not at all apparent how Professor Nyiri's response -- that he won top points in an impeccable and transparent selection process for a highly interesting and novel research project that was funded and for which he is very proud, no doubt justifiably -- answers Professor Mayer's observation that the size of the funding Professor Nyiri was awarded was no less than any of the "abnormally high amount of project sums" he refers to. But let us agree that bickering about this sort thing is common among rival researchers (COMP) and is clearly not about the high crimes and misdemeanors that we have agreed to call CRIM and about which we are concerned here.)

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 15:45 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Hornok on 1919

HORNOK (full posting):
The Hungarian grant system has been re-built according to West-European models after 1990 and this system now is compatible with that of the EU. (i) Grants from the National Office for Research and Technology (NORT) and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (HSRF) support technological/industrial development projects and basic research, respectively. Calls for submitting new proposals are widely announced, the projects are evaluated by anonymous reviewers, opinions and suggestions of the reviewers are discussed by a scientific panel (their names are publicly available). The panel ranks the projects and the presidency of NORT or HSRF brings the decision on support or rejection. Reviews and comments are available for the project leaders. If the project proposal is accepted, a contract is signed by the sponsor (here the State), the project leader and his/her host institute. Interim and final reports are evaluated by reviewers and financial experts. Decision on accepting or rejecting the final report is again taken by the presidency. All documents should be retained at least for five years allowing a scientific or monetary auditing by the state or the EU (in case of EU grants). (ii) Besides the so-called philosophers’ projects, 10 other NORT-projects completed during the previous governmental cycle are re-examined by G. Budai, governmental research funding overseer. Such reexaminations are regular events and in no way are focused to philosophers’ projects. (iii) A serious misuse of the project money may carry disciplinary or criminal consequences. Such events are inconvenient for the project leader, who is responsible for the scientific or technological content of the work, but she/he is never accused by misappropriation of the money. A project leader spends not a single coin without the permission of the duly authorized financial officer of the institute and, therefore only this officer and the director of the institute can be indicated for crimes like embezzlement or fraud. (iv) Nobody from the Hungarian scientific community (some 7-8.000 people with scientific degrees) argued against the scientific excellence of professors Heller or Vajda. Furthermore, it is an absolute nonsense to state, that members of the Orban-cabinet would harass these people. The most prestigious prize in Hungary is the Szechenyi Award, donated by the state in recognition of those who made an outstanding contribution to the academic life. Heller and Vajda received this state award in 1998 and 2001, respectively, during the era of the 1st Orban-cabinet (1998-2002). (v) The philosophers who seemingly need some external protection from the Hungarian government received indeed all supports to fulfill their talent from this otherwise poor country. In fact they are appraised by this nation. Most people are [appalled] to see, why such prominent members of the Hungarian scientific life allowed themselves to be dragged into political scandals.

Quote/commentary on Hornok posting:

HARNAD:
Professor Hornok’s posting gives what sounds like a very sanguine public statement about the health of Hungary’s current grant funding system (although he neglects to mention how Mr. Budai picks his targets!). But reading Professor Hornok’s account, one would wonder why Professor Palinkas, the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (in a statement whose URL is helpfully provided by Professor Magyar in one of his postings) wrote:

PALINKAS (Jan 31):
The social science research programme launched by the Government on my initiative in the framework of the Széchenyi Plan in 2001 was substantially retailored by the next government in 2002. It became professionally unfounded, financially illogical and legally vulnerable. In the retailored programme curiosity-driven basic research was deprived of substantial funding, a move weakening Hungary's ability to keep her best scientists at home, while social science projects with only rhetorical relevance to innovation or Hungary's accession to the EU were eligible to much more considerable grants than usual. It is our common interest that such a deformed, incomprehensible and counterproductive system of research funding should be transformed to normalcy. What is needed is an up-to-date, thoroughly transparent research funding system that provides a balanced support of basic research, technical development and innovation. Among other benefits, such a turn would stop brain drain and would stimulate the return, and re-employment in Hungary, of those who had left. The success of the work we have begun could be seriously jeopardised by artificially induced, amateurish, inconsiderate, politically motivated mud-slinging whether it comes from the areas of science, public administration, or from the media. http://mta.hu/news_and_views/press-release-from-the-president-of-mta-126963/

HARNAD:
It is especially reassuring to hear the following from Professor Hornok:

HORNOK (Feb 4):
“Nobody from the Hungarian scientific community (some 7-8.000 people with scientific degrees) argued against the scientific excellence of professors Heller or Vajda. Furthermore, it is an absolute nonsense to state, that members of the Orban-cabinet would harass these people. The most prestigious prize in Hungary is the Szechenyi Award, donated by the state in recognition of those who made an outstanding contribution to the academic life. Heller and Vajda received this state award in 1998 and 2001, respectively, during the era of the 1st Orban-cabinet (1998-2002)”

HARNAD:One becomes, however, a trifle less reassured, when one hears the following words from the same Professor Hornok, spoken (in Hungarian) in a rather different context (the Batthyany Circle of Professors) only a few days earlier (translated here):

HORNOK:
“Dear fellow professors, It is not good for us to remain silent in this case (either), all the less because the enemy leaves no stone unturned. (It is not the "other side" but an enemy, a mortal enemy of the nation!). At this time external members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences are being encouraged to collect signatures by philosophers of Canadian, American, and British citizenships who have been mobilized by the Heller group, and whom—to the great shame of the Academy—we previously elected as honorary members: Daniel C. Dennett, Robert Evans, Stevan Harnad… There is no need to argue with Ágnes Heller’s group. They must simply be ostracized! When we meet these characters we shall look them in the eye without greeting them, when they sit down next to us we shall stand up, for the only way to oppose the hatred in which they wallow to make their living is with silence and total contempt…. The “people,” however, must know how we think about these issues… Regards, László Hornok PS: The spineless (sincerely patriotic) intelligentsia is also responsible for what has happened in this unfortunate country over the past twenty years… The organized and deliberate genocide that has been going on for twenty-one (or sixty-six or ninety-seven?) years has actually been completed.” http://esbalogh.typepad.com/hungarianspectrum/2011/02/index.html

HARNAD:
Hungary needs reform, not revenge. What foreign researchers and funders and expatriate Hungarian researchers need if they are to be attracted to Hungary is a clear, efficient, transparent new system of rules and procedures for research funding, with ongoing auditing to ensure that current and future research funds are indeed being spent according to the new rules and procedures -- not an arbitrary, retroactive, selective show-trial for research funds allegedly misspent long ago, under the old system of rules and procedures, under another government. (The same constructive focus on reform rather than the vindictive focus on revenge might help solve other problems Hungary faces as well...)

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 15:40 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Vancsó on Smoke Screens

VANCSO (Full Posting):
“Fiscal accountability belongs to standard practices of science: scientists who use taxpayers money are responsible to the society for the use of the funds they receive for the purpose they were funded. Fraud must be unveiled, criminal practices must be prosecuted. It is the right of the society to probe whether the funds were used in an appropriate manner. It is the responsibility of legal entities to provide justice and prosecute (or acquit) those who violate the law. A group of international scientists launched an initiative in support of a group of Hungarian philosophers to interfere in a Hungarian inquiry related to possible abuse of public funds. In addition to fund abuse, criminal charges related to fraud and tax evasion are also considered. The authors of the initiative consider the allegations politically motivated and believe that these lack substance. In an open letter the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HUS) was requested to "take a prompt, prominent and uneqivocal public position in support of the research and researchers thus attacked...". This requests nothing less than jumping to conclusions prior to unveiling justice. Those, who know the situation best, i.e. the resident Members of the HUS, were not addressed assuming that in their homeland they might be prosecuted when they make their opinion heard. This is a ridiculous and politically loaded assumption. Meanwhile an emotional discussion broke out also in this forum. As external HUS member I urged the authors to withdraw their letter, and remain factual as opposed to arguing by using pompous rhetoric and hide the facts behind a smokescreen of general academic principles to which all scientists of stature subscribe. In my opinion they should wait for the outcome of the inquiries as if the accused have nothing to fear, justice will surely be provided. The group of the accused philosophers believe that they have been harrassed. The use of the harrassment argument may provide a smokescreen to divert the attention from the facts. The questions are whether the law was broken, and whether the fiscal responsibility of principal scientists has been abused. I pointed out that the open letter lacked facts. I believe that no one should rush into premature and unsubstantiated conclusions without facts. Professor Daniel Dennett, a world leading philosopher and one of the three signatories of the open letter meanwhile withdrew his signature as he recognized that he is not in the possession of enough information which would allow him to lend his name to this action. But do we have enough information? Has public money been abused? Has the law been broken? Has a group of scholars abused their influence? Let's see what the results of the inquiry will tell. Meanwhile my advise is for all those who support this initiative to remain professional, and stick to the facts, for ugly and polarized accusations surely will not help to unveil the truth.”

IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS FOR THIS DISCUSSION:
COMP/MOOT/CRIM & PRO/DEN
HARNAD:
I would like to suggest that we all use some abbreviations marking important distinctions that will make this discussion easier for observers to follow and understand:

The allegations against the philosophers are of three fundamentally different kinds that need to be carefully distinguished. The first kind – “COMP” (for complaints) -- consists of the kinds of generic allegations that researchers everywhere often make about one another’s funding and about the funding system (the allotments were unfair, the system was unfair, etc.). The second kind – “CRIM” (for crimes) -- alleges that either rules or laws have been broken by the philosophers in question. The third kind – “MOOT” (for moot) – alleges that there were egregious practices by the philosophers in question – practices against which there should have been rules or laws, but those rules and laws do not yet exist, and did not exist at the time.

If the reader does not keep clearly in mind the distinctions among generic and systemic complaints (COMP), allegations of practices that ought to be criminalized (MOOT) and allegations of criminality (CRIM), it will be impossible to follow the discussion or draw any coherent conclusion.

At those polarized points in the discussion where the COMP/MOOT/CRIM distinction is particularly crucial, let us call the two contending sides “PRO” (for proponents of criminal allegations [CRIM] against the philosophers) and “DEN” (for deniers of CRIM allegations against the philosophers).
It is the contention of PRO that the accused philosophers have committed crimes (CRIM) and that the deniers (DEN) are biased in favor of the accused, and trying to obstruct justice.

It is the contention of DEN that no crimes (CRIM) have been committed by the accused philosophers, but, rather -- for undisclosed reasons, suspected to be a government policy of retribution against its predecessor government’s corruption and selective harassment of its current critics – COMP and MOOT have been systematically escalated by PRO into allegations of crime (CRIM) against the accused philosophers.

In commenting and responding, it will be a great help if everyone identifies clearly when they are speaking of COMP, MOOT or CRIM (and, where relevant, whether their own position is PRO or DEN regarding CRIM in particular).

Quote/Commentary on Vancso posting:

VANCSO:
“Fiscal accountability belongs to standard practices of science: scientists who use taxpayers money are responsible to the society for the use of the funds they receive for the purpose they were funded.”

HARNAD:
It is important for everyone to note that all sides – both PRO and DEN – agree on this point. The inadequacy of the current funding system and the need for reform are not a point of disagreement.

(1) Research funding requires a system of reliable, rigorous accountability, to make sure that funds are properly used, in accordance with explicit funding rules and procedures, as well as with the law of the land.

(2) If the rules and procedures and/or the methods of auditing and accountability of the previous government’s funding system were inadequate (as everyone agrees they were) then that system of rules and procedures and its methods of auditing and accountability need to be reformed. And if the prior law of the land was not adequate, then that too must be changed.

(3) But what is a first fundamental point of disagreement between PRO and DEN is that, if the prior system's rules and procedures and its methods of auditing and accountability were indeed inadequate and in need of reform (as everyone agrees they were) then what is needed is to reform the system, not to seek retroactive retribution against an arbitrarily targeted subset of scholars to avenge the fact that the prior system was inadequate.

(4) The second fundamental point of disagreement between PRO and DEN is that if retrospective recriminations and retribution are to take priority over reform, then that retribution can only be done even-handedly: That means that either a systematic total audit must be done of all prior funding under the old system in the time-frame in question (the past ten years) -- or at least the systematic audit of a blind random sample -- to identify whether and which research projects have either violated the old rules or broken the existing laws (CRIM).

(5) What is in no way acceptable or justifiable is to single out a handful of funded research projects a priori -- for whatever a priori reason, and certainly not COMP or MOOT reasons – for selective allegations of CRIM and selective investigations of CRIM -- without first having done a systematic and even-handed prior comparison with the rest of the research funded under the old system to see whether any egregious cases really emerge.

(6) For if all or most or even many of the funded research projects during this period show the same symptoms of the inadequacy of the current funding system, then selectively singling out the accused – merely on COMP or MOOT grounds – is merely arbitrary scape-goating and harassment.

VANCSO:
“Fraud must be unveiled, criminal practices must be prosecuted.”

HARNAD:
Yes indeed, but has fraud (CRIM) been demonstrated? Has criminality been proven? Are these not rather strong words to be used when nothing has been proven and the only thing that seems certain is that the rules and procedures and the auditing and answerability of the existing funding system were inadequate? Performing in accordance with the rules and procedures and the auditing and answerability of an inadequate system (whether COMP or MOOT) is not synonymous with CRIM.

And if the presumption is that there have indeed been significant violations of the existing rules and procedures of the existing (inadequate) system during the time period in question (CRIM), then on what basis have the 5-6 accused philosophers in particular been singled out for this presumption?

Violations (if any) of the existing rules and procedures (CRIM) of an inadequate system could have been frequent or rare or anything in between. The way to find out is through a systematic audit (total or blind/random), across all funded fields.

VANCSO:
“It is the right of the society to probe whether the funds were used in an appropriate manner.”

HARNAD:
This is indisputably true, PRO and DEN both agree on it, and if it had been decided to do an exhaustive retroactive audit of all research projects funded during the decade in question – or even a blind random sample across projects and fields – no one could or would have cried foul, either at the audit or the outcome (if the outcome was that some projects had either broken rules or the law [CRIM], whereas many or most had not).

It is a pragmatic question whether -- after 10 years of implementing a funding system whose rules and procedures, and methods of accountability, were inadequate -- the best use of time and funds is to do a total retroactive audit in order to find and punish prior infractions, or rather to channel efforts into designing and implementing a reformed funding system, with clear rules and procedures, and rigorous methods of ongoing auditing and accountability.

But whether the decision is for proactive reform or retroactive retribution, the methods have to be fair and unbiased. Singling out a handful of philosophers for selective scrutiny, with no population baseline for comparison, is at best an ad hoc fishing expedition and at worst ad hominem harassment.

VANCSO:
“It is the responsibility of legal entities to provide justice and prosecute (or acquit) those who violate the law.”

HARNAD:
Undisputed. This is not the subject of disagreement.

VANCSO:
“A group of international scientists launched an initiative in support of a group of Hungarian philosophers to interfere in a Hungarian inquiry related to possible abuse of public funds.”

HARNAD:
If the initiative in question here is the Open Letter -- by External and Honorary members of the Hungarian Academy of Science asking the President to support the accused philosophers and oppose those accusing them of unproven wrongdoing -- it is not at all clear why Professor Vancso describes this as interference in a legal inquiry.

If public accusations (PRO) of criminality (CRIM) against the philosophers by the press and public officials (including the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) are not interfering with any legal inquiry, then how are public statements in their defense (DEN) doing so?

Is it not reasonable to ask why the inquiry was directed at this group of philosophers? what the basis for the selection and comparison was? and why the outcome is being pre-judged and the accused being vilified in the Government-supported press when there has been no factual or juridical outcome

VANCSO:
“In addition to fund abuse, criminal charges related to fraud and tax evasion are also considered.”

HARNAD:
Charges (CRIM) are easy to make, but what is the evidence, and what is the verdict? Under Hungary's tax laws (I am told), it is currently legal (MOOT) and widely done (among laymen, professionals and researchers alike) for individuals to receive income in private corporations that are taxed at lower rates than personal income. That sounds like one of the laws worth reforming.

But it is not at all clear why these philosophers been singled out to be charged with this, since it is so widespread, and ostensibly legal (MOOT). Was a systematic audit done, and these philosophers turned out to be the only practitioners, or among the few? Or is the practice common, and they were singled out to be accused of it for another reason?

VANCSO:
“The authors of the initiative consider the allegations politically motivated and believe that these lack substance. In an open letter the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HUS) was requested to ‘take a prompt, prominent and uneqivocal public position in support of the research and researchers thus attacked...’. This requests nothing less than jumping to conclusions prior to unveiling justice.”

HARNAD:
It is not at all clear why claiming that crimes (CRIM) have been committed and proven (as is already repeatedly being done in this Forum) is not "jumping to conclusions prior to unveiling justice" (PRO) whereas saying they have not (DEN), is.

VANCSO:
“Those, who know the situation best, i.e. the resident Members of the HUS, were not addressed assuming that in their homeland they might be prosecuted when they make their opinion heard. This is a ridiculous and politically loaded assumption.”

HARNAD:
The Open Letter is an Open Letter, and of course Internal members are free to co-sign. They were not explicitly invited in order not to put them on the spot, one way or the other. Surely this point is not difficult to understand.

VANCSO:
“Meanwhile an emotional discussion broke out also in this forum. As external HUS member I urged the authors to withdraw their letter, and remain factual as opposed to arguing by using pompous rhetoric and hide the facts behind a smokescreen of general academic principles to which all scientists of stature subscribe. In my opinion they should wait for the outcome of the inquiries as if the accused have nothing to fear, justice will surely be provided. The group of the accused philosophers believe that they have been harrassed. The use of the harrassment argument may provide a smokescreen to divert the attention from the facts. The questions are whether the law was broken, and whether the fiscal responsibility of principal scientists has been abused. I pointed out that the open letter lacked facts. I believe that no one should rush into premature and unsubstantiated conclusions without facts.”

HARNAD:
The defenders against the accusations (DEN) certainly share Professor Vancso's belief that no one should rush into premature and unsubstantiated conclusions without facts. But it is unfortunately not at all clear that the promulgators of the accusations themselves (PRO) share that belief.

I am not sure what Professor Vancso means by "an emotional discussion broke out also in this forum" (if by forum he means the exchange of emails among the signatories of the Open Letter. Professor Vancso wrote his own response to the Open Letter on the day it was sent (January 28), branching it to the first 3 signatories and the President of the Academy, and to my knowledge, the only other communication was my invitation to him (on February 5) to post his views to ScienceInsider (which he has now kindly done, for which many thanks!).

But what was the “emotional discussion”? Is Professor Vancso referring to the present forum (ScienceInsider?) (Perhaps there was another series of email exchanges to which not everyone on Professor Vancso’s original CC list was privy?)

Apart from this, I would add that it is indeed true, quite symmetrically, that both the PRO and DEN lack facts. However, there is also an asymmetry that is not being very conscientiously acknowledged: the presumption of innocence until/unless guilt is proven. Already several who have posted to ScienceInsider have illustrated how confidently one can pass from acknowledging that no one knows whether crimes have been committed at all, to speaking of the obviousness of the crimes (CRIM) -- indeed the long history of crimes -- of the accused.

There is no smokescreen of "general academic principles" here (are principles smokescreens?): It is not known that anyone has committed any crime. Hence the only question is, why are so many people speaking about CRIM in connection with the philosophers in question? Why were they singled out? And why is there this polarization between PRO and DEN when everyone (including the Academy) should be taking the side of presumptive innocence until/unless facts prove otherwise

VANCSO:
“Professor Daniel Dennett, a world leading philosopher and one of the three signatories of the open letter meanwhile withdrew his signature as he recognized that he is not in the possession of enough information which would allow him to lend his name to this action. But do we have enough information? Has public money been abused? Has the law been broken? Has a group of scholars abused their influence? Let's see what the results of the inquiry will tell. Meanwhile my advise is for all those who support this initiative to remain professional, and stick to the facts, for ugly and polarized accusations surely will not help to unveil the truth.”

HARNAD:
Again, there is no disagreement at all that ugly and polarized accusations will not help unveil the truth. But let us not forget that the only accused ones are the philosophers in question, and they are accused of having committed crimes (CRIM); those ugly and polarized accusations against them are coming from their accusers (PRO); and the other side is defending (DEN) from them. Unlike the accused philosophers, no one is being accused (let alone prosecuted) of a crime by the defenders. (Please let us not confuse the fact that (1) the two sides, PRO and DEN, do not always have the most flattering opinion of one another with (2) accusations of crime [CRIM].)

My own guess (but Professor Vancso can correct me on this) is that the "emotional discussion" to which Professor Vancso refers was in fact the "torrent of messages both condemning and supporting" his having signed the Open Letter that eventually persuaded Dan Dennett – the kindest and fairest of men, someone I love and admire, and to whom I am greatly indebted personally -- to ask me to transmit to the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences the message that "I simply do not know enough about the specific issues to have a responsible opinion about how the principles enunciated in the letter, to which I do fully subscribe, should be applied in this situation... I must withdraw my signature in order not to be drawn into this polarized atmosphere." (The resultant emotion in the PRO press all the ensuing week was jubilation! The polarized atmosphere is now on display here.)

My hope is that the ScienceInsider forum will show that when it comes to taking sides between accusing (PRO) of crime (CRIM) and defending against accusations of crime (DEN), the truth is not necessarily in the middle.

But first we need a few more iterations of this discussion to get all the prima facie allegations (COMP, MOOT and CRIM) (and the motives for making them) out into the open.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 15:35 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On "Magyar" On White Collar Crime

Note: It has subsequently become apparent that "Istvan "MAGYAR" has been posting under a false name; his real identity remains To Determine.

"MAGYAR" (full posting):
“The scholars have received grants totaling 440 million forints—about $2 million—to support dozens of research projects, postdocs, and students" This is just false. The fact is that an overwhelming majority of the money went into the pockets of well-connected and well-paid philosophers having two, three or in Vajda's case five other sources of income. This happened either through personal accounts or personal businesses, and frequently with an obvious violation of the law. The money didn't go into philosophical research. So before writing an article like this, one should perhaps explore the facts instead of asking one obviously biased philosopher, Bodnar, who is also listed in one of the projects. The recipe is well-known: ask the one who says what you want to hear, don't bother if he is part of the plot.”
“The evidence is entirely public, has been made so by the condemned press on the government's side. A move which the press on the left would never have made, as these facts are true but harmful to their favourite intellectuals, most of the time personal friends of the editors themselves. One should just think about the regular dinners Heller has with the editor of the "independent" Nepszabadsag.”
“So, what Harnad and Bohannon say is just ignorance. They don't mention the money that was pocketed by these philosophers through contracts signed with themselves, with their very own businesses, etc. All these facts are public, including the amounts that landed in their hands. And at least Harnad should be able to read Hungarian... especially if he is organizing resistance against what? A legal investigation... obstructing justice? If the facts made public by "MAGYAR" Nemzet were false, there should have been a lot of legal cases initiated, but there are none. Why not if all these facts, unknown to these combative intellectuals here, are false? So, contrary to Nyiri, we do know facts: stated by the press and undisputed by these philosophers. (By the way, there are several other projects and other businesses under investigation as well, not only philosophers' and historians'. So, watch out, there may be some other white-collar criminals needing your support.)”

Quote/commentary on "MAGYAR" posting:

"MAGYAR":
“The scholars have received grants totaling 440 million forints—about $2 million—to support dozens of research projects, postdocs, and students" This is just false. The fact is that an overwhelming majority of the money went into the pockets of well-connected and well-paid philosophers having two, three or in Vajda's case five other sources of income.”

HARNAD:
Reminder to the reader in this litany of allegations: Is this a claim that the law has been broken (CRIM)? Or that there were practices that were permissible under the current funding system that ought to me made impermissible (MOOT)? Or is this just a generic complaint that researchers have received more funding than I think they deserved (COMP)?

"MAGYAR":
“This happened either through personal accounts or personal businesses, and frequently with an obvious violation of the law.”

HARNAD:
Surely whether or not there has been “an obvious violation of the law” (CRIM) is for the courts to decide. Apart from that, all we have here is a confident accusation of criminality (PRO).

"MAGYAR":
“The money didn't go into philosophical research. So before writing an article like this, one should perhaps explore the facts instead of asking one obviously biased philosopher, Bodnar, who is also listed in one of the projects. The recipe is well-known: ask the one who says what you want to hear, don't bother if he is part of the plot.”

HARNAD:
It is not clear whether under these circumstances either PRO or DEN are a reliable source of facts.But is it obvious that if a philosopher is “listed” in one of the projects this means he is biased, or “part of the plot” (what plot?). Is this fact obvious in the same way that there has been “an obvious violation of the law” (CRIM)?

"MAGYAR":
“The evidence is entirely public, has been made so by the condemned press on the government's side. A move which the press on the left would never have made, as these facts are true but harmful to their favourite intellectuals, most of the time personal friends of the editors themselves. One should just think about the regular dinners Heller has with the editor of the "independent" Nepszabadsag.”

HARNAD:
The government-side press has been public about the alleged evidence of the alleged crime (PRO). That is undisputed. There is some difficulty, however, in following the logic of what follows: Should the non-government-side press (DEN) have accepted those allegations as proven? Should it have published an admission of guilt (CRIM)? Perhaps a disclosure of the cost of the dinners? What is the point?

"MAGYAR": “So, what Harnad and Bohannon say is just ignorance. They don't mention the money that was pocketed by these philosophers through contracts signed with themselves, with their very own businesses, etc. All these facts are public, including the amounts that landed in their hands. And at least Harnad should be able to read Hungarian...”

HARNAD:
It is not at all obvious to what extent these are either facts or public. But what is most non-obvious of all is whether they are crimes (CRIM), i.e., illegal. And if they are not illegal, whether they ought to be made illegal (MOOT) – or whether instead they were legitimate uses of the awarded funds to pay for salaries or the conduct of research, and simply became the object of complaints (COMP) from those who were not awarded funds. None of this is at all obvious, whether or not one reads Hungarian, and regardless of whom one listens to. One can nevertheless form one’s own provisional judgment, and that can indeed be based on something that is obvious: That there is no basis – obvious or subtle -- for concluding that any crime (CRIM) has been committed; and hence that those who argue that it is obvious that a crime has been committed (PRO) are obviously wrong. Their motive is unclear, but it is clear that the accused philosophers (and any others who become similar targets) need to be defended against such confident allegations of “obvious” criminality.

"MAGYAR":
“...especially if [Harnad] is organizing resistance against what? A legal investigation... obstructing justice? If the facts made public by "MAGYAR" Nemzet were false, there should have been a lot of legal cases initiated, but there are none. Why not if all these facts, unknown to these combative intellectuals here, are false?

HARNAD:
It is not clear whether Mr. "Magyar" is alleging that the drafters and the signatories of the Open Letter are obstructing justice. (If so, I don’t plan to try to sue him for libel!) As stated in the Open Letter, erroneous, hyperbolic and tendentious public assertions are made all the time in the media, worldwide, and are and should be ignored (especially when they are about (and by) researchers!). In Hungary today, though, it seems that certain kinds of tendentious public assertions (PRO) are not only given heed, but even acted upon (perhaps even encouraged) by the authorities. I know no reason not to have confidence in the freedom of the courts in Hungary; the grounds for confidence in the freedom of the press are perhaps not quite as firm. But is Mr. "Magyar" suggesting that if things are alleged in Magyar Nemzet that makes them facts? Or is it things that are alleged without a subsequent libel suit that thereby become facts?

"MAGYAR":
"So, contrary to Nyiri, we do know facts: stated by the press and undisputed by these philosophers. (By the way, there are several other projects and other businesses under investigation as well, not only philosophers' and historians'. So, watch out, there may be some other white-collar criminals needing your support.)”

HARNAD:
We would have to watch out indeed, if this were to become the way that facts are now determined in Hungary. Our Open Letter was not written to obstruct justice, but to try to preserve it – from this.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 15:30 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Quod Erat ad Demonstrandum (QED)

[Note: This is a response to an anonymous posting to the ScienceInsider discussion forum. In Hungary, left-liberal critics are being systematically harassed in a smear campaign abetted by the Hungarian right-wing government. The ScienceInsider forum was intended to bring these tactics out into the open. Here is an instance where an anonymous poster tried such a smear tactic against me, suggesting that the reason I launched the Open Letter and campaign in support of the accused philosophers was for self-promotion, citing data on self-edits on my Wikipedia entry by way of incriminating evidence.]

I first posted the following to ScienceInsider, explaining why my reply would appear here rather than there:

For the reasons already stated in the Anonymity FAQ, I won't respond on Science Insider to Anonymous's enterprising attempt to put a sinister spin on trivial Wikipedia data. But for those for whom the nonsense (and mischief) is not already transparent, I have responded openly on Open Access Archivangelism.

I am rather grateful to Anonymous, however, for having so helpfully provided the world with this paradigmatic example "revealing the 'dynamics in Hungary'".

This is precisely the kind of tactic that the accused philosophers (and a growing number of other scholars and artists) are facing in Hungary today, but without the benefit of an open international forum to which their governmental accusers must answer for their conduct. (Hence the anonymity of Anonymous.)

And, yes, the "evidence" in the Hungarian Philosopher Affair really is all pretty much at the same level as this Wikipedia evidence, along with the attempt to give it a spin that makes it appear symptomatic of wrong-doing -- except that the philosophers are now facing Hungary's Prosecutor General on the basis of such accusations.

Apart from that, I refer Anonymous to the Anonymity FAQ.

(For Science Insider readers I must add, though, that not being the moderator of ScienceInsider discussion forum, I am alas powerless to prevent anonymous posters from continuing to try to turn it into a vehicle for exacting revenge on those who criticize and expose the very tactics that are being used in Hungary to exact revenge on the Government's critics and adversaries. But perhaps the exercise will still prove instructive, maybe even salutary.)

1. Most Wikipedia authors and editors are anonymous, or, rather, pseudonymous. My decision to use my real name as my Wikipedia login -- the one that permitted "Anonymous" to make his shocking discovery -- is, as far as I know, relatively rare on Wikipedia. I did it very deliberately from the outset in 2005, because (for many reasons) I am opposed to anonymous, unanswerable Wikipedia puttering.

2. As far as I know, most contemporary academics who have a Wikipedia page either manage their own page or have their students do it. But few use their own names as their Wikipedia logins.

3. Hence it would have been impossible for Anonymous to make any objective comparisons between the number of self-edits I make on my own entry and the number of self-edits other authors make on their own entries. His data are hence just empty numerology -- all the moreso since my Wikipedia entry is relatively tiny, and the 43 corrections and updates I've done since 2005 have been tinier still. (E.g., I today removed -- for the third time [right there that's already 3/43 of the total edits since 2005 that Anonymous has so helpfully counted for me!] -- a misattribution someone kept adding, wrongly crediting me with contributions to the work of my mentor.)

4. Anonymous's accusations about violating the Wikipedia rules on "Autobiographies" and "Conflict of Interest" are nonsense not only because (i) managing one's own Wikipedia entry is permissible and widely done, but because (ii) I reveal my identity openly, hence anyone in the (extremely officious!) ranks of Wikipedia's self-appointed editorial hierarchy could at any time have blocked me for "self-promotion" on my entry if I had ever done anything that looked like self-promotion across all those years:

"In clear-cut cases, it is permissible to edit pages connected to yourself. So, you can revert vandalism; but of course it has to be simple, obvious vandalism and not a content dispute. Similarly, you should feel free to remove mistaken or unreferenced out-of-date facts about yourself…. and so on."

5. In reality, my Wikipedia entry is extremely short, low-key and (if I may say so) modest, among entries of academics (i.e., those who bother to have a Wikipedia entry at all -- or bother with policing their entry if others have created one for them).

6. Not only is my number of self-edits on my Wikipedia entry actually quite low for a current item that has been up since almost the inception of Wikipedia, but I didn't even create my entry! I discovered it there one day in 2005 -- and as I recall it turned out to have been just a bowdlerized cut/paste of the bio from my university staff page, apparently up there since about 2003; so my first edit was to cut it down in size. I've mostly been cleaning up the rot that keeps accumulating across the years since I first discovered it; and I occasionally do a reference update, including updating the photo (the original one, if I recall -- perhaps Anonymous can go and check to correct me? -- had been placed there from an old gif found in Google images).

Now, when you are conducting an ad hoc smear campaign against someone you don't like and would love to discredit, you do the kind of Digging That Anonymous did; then you try to put the most sinister possible spin on whatever you think you've come up with (while claiming to just be reporting the objective facts); and if that fails, you get back to digging for and announcing something else. No target is immune to such a litany of innuendos; the charges are endless, and never admitted to have been refuted (like Freudian symptom-transfer, as soon as one fizzles, another one is launched to take its place, without acknowledgment, let alone apology), and it is never conceded that the whole process has been a farce, from beginning to interminable end, all in the service of relentless, malign ends.

And this is exactly the kind of thing the Hungarian government, its unidentified informants and sleuths, and the government-side press have been doing in their still-growing campaign selectively directed against the philosophers (and others) they don't like and are bent on punishing.

(What I encourage Anonymous To Do next is to go and check my research grants!)

[Anonymous has since posted on ScienceInsider again. Here we go again...]

The Doppelganger(s)
(1) First, please let me cheerily admit what I have never denied: I do indeed speak, read and write Hungarian! (It's just that I have a hunch that it might perhaps be more useful to keep this discourse in a language that all witnesses can understand…)

What I had cheerily denied (multiple times) was that I had ever before known (or known of) any of the accused scholars, or that any of them had previously known or contacted me, seeking help. I thereby had disappointingly to disconfirm the hopeful hypothesis of "Anonymous" (who was then going by the patriotic name of "Istvan Magyar" and apparently at a loss to fathom why else anyone could possibly have taken up the victims' cause) as to the real reason I had done so. But now at last Anonymous has astutely discovered my real reason: It was to enhance my Wikipedia profile!

(2) I would be no less cheery, though, if "Anonymous" were eventually to find a way to calm his impulse to further enhance my Wikipedia profile by posting my name quite so frequently in the ScienceInsider forum! After all, all those unearned bonus hits in which my name is lately luxuriating are really owing only to having to keep invoking the Anonymity FAQ in declining to respond on ScienceInsider to "Anonymous's" enterprising, persistent but somewhat distracting antics; after all, that's not the only thing Science Forum was created to bring out in the open…

Now a light-hearted hypothesis of my own: Since the "signature" of their tactics is so remarkably similar, would it not be an ironic coincidence if this decidedly "Anonymous" doppelganger turned out to be one and the same as that shadowy whistle-blower who had launched the entire philosopher affair with an anonymous police denunciation? Or are they just stylistic and ideological soul-mates?

What is the real head-shaker in all this is not that there exist mischievous malcontents like "Anonymous" in Hungary -- they alas flower aplenty, everywhere on the planet -- but that an entire government would stoop to making common cause with their likes.

[Double Trouble: "Magyar Istvan"'s back again...]

I solemnly promise that if Anonymous and "Istvan Magyar" reveal their true identity I will publicly apologize to them both for the insult of having suspected them to be one and the same scallywag. Alas, different IPs for anonymous posters won't quite do the disentangling trick. And with the abrupt termination of "Istvan Magyar"'s omnipresence on this forum mysteriously coinciding with Anonymous's debut, and only the charming style and somewhat inquisitorial slant perduring, one can hardly be blamed for thinking... (though my conscience is a little relieved upon hearing that "IM"/A is not a stranger to being ill-used in internet discussions). Otherwise, the Anonymity FAQ is all I can offer by way of trying to make amends for "Double Trouble"'s travails.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Posted by Stevan Harnad in Freedom of Expression at 15:28 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

(Page 1 of 1, totaling 10 entries)

Open Access Archivangelism

Sunday, November 6. 2016

Exchange with President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Exchange with President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Monday, October 17. 2016

Call for Government Protest Resignations from Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Wednesday, February 23. 2011

Hungary's Philosophy Affair: Bringing It All Out Into The Open

Open Letter to President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Nyiri on Martyrdom

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Hornok on 1919

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Vancsó on Smoke Screens

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On "Magyar" On White Collar Crime

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